Matthew Cleary is the new Executive Director of ALIMA

Dakar, March 8, 2016 – ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action) announced the arrival of its new Executive Director, Matthew Cleary.

“Matthew Cleary brings with him solid operational experience, leadership and management skills, and knowledge of development and governance issues” affirmed Dr. Richard Kojan, president of ALIMA.

Matthew Cleary replaces Alexis Smigielski who carried out valuable work and contributed to the development of the organization over the past three years.

With a background in emergency room nursing, Matthew began working in the humanitarian field in 2004 as a field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, in the Darfur region of Sudan. Matthew has worked on humanitarian missions in many countries including Niger, Somalia, Egypt and India.

Before joining ALIMA, Matthew was the Director of an association providing psychosocial support to drug addicts, homeless people and people with disabilities in Australia.

“It is by carrying a strong humanitarian project built around an alliance between national NGOs and research institutes that ALIMA will propose innovative and relevant medical care in crisis situations” he declared.

ALIMA is a medical humanitarian organization created in 2009. It aims to provide assistance to populations in emergency situations such as epidemics, conflicts, or natural disasters.

It bases its activities on partnerships with national humanitarian actors. By pooling and capitalizing on their skills, ALIMA and its partners provide quality medical care to a greater number of beneficiaries and contribute to the improvement of practices of humanitarian medicine.

In 2012, the operational partnership was formalized with the creation of a platform of medical NGO providers in the Sahel, consisting of six NGOs: Keoogo and SOS Médecins (Burkina Faso), Alerte Santé (Chad), BEFEN (Niger), AMCP (Mali) and ALIMA.

ALIMA’s Headquarters are located in Montreuil (France), and the Operational Headquarters in Dakar (Senegal) which allows for proximity to the countries in which ALIMA intervenes in West, Eastern and Central Africa: Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 2015, ALIMA conducted 25 projects in 7 countries, employed 35 people at the operational headquarters of Dakar and over 1 200 people including 150 expatriate staff on the ground.